Rofl. Ok, you want the truth? A realistic goal is to avoid losing 30% in your first year. A harder but still realistic goal is to avoid losing money in your first year. An even harder but realistic goal is to make *any profit at all* in your first year. A very easy, realistic goal is to keep a detailed journal and review all your trades, and learn a lot about the markets in your first year. Making 2% per week compound via swing/position trading is not a realistic goal in your first year. Making a living from trading this way in your first year is not a realistic goal.
Thank you for your wisdom, Cutten. I am doing my best with spending as much time as possible in the markets. Unfortunately, since most college classes are during the day, and all attempts to spare stock trading hours only left me a couple periods per day (I tried to leave 10-12 and 3-4 open for swings, but even this didn't turn out well), I will have to trade forex, which will open up plenty of new opportunities anyway. The only other measure I may not meet is the keeping my journals by trade, day, week, month, year. I have been keeping every stock option trade I have made so far, and I will begin forex soon, but it has taken a lot of discipline to commit to my journal. I will work on this. Thank you for your post.
Didn't read most of the posts, I have no real advise, but rather a question for the OP... Why do you think age has bearing on "realistic goals" in the trading business? Experience (not to be confused with age) in this business equals discipline, which is not taught or found in books. Discipline equals consistency. YOUR goals should reflect YOUR belief in YOUR ability to apply discipline to your business plans, ie trading. My near 50-year-old money is as green as the neighbors newborns' college fund. Osorico
Pegasys, I only ruled out ETF investing. I trade options with the SPY, DIA, QQQQ, IWM, EEM, XLF, XLE, and semiconductors (SMH I think) right now. I stopped doing individual stocks because I was entering too many trades and news risk is astronomical, even when you do the research to check when earnings announcements are and those kinds of things. It's much easier to keep track of the news that impacts indices/ETFs, such as oil, interest rates, etc. I'd rather lose profit potential than be susceptible to this idea of entering a very good trade only to lose it all on company news.
ok thats good. Just keep practicing. Remember TRADE SMALL!!!!!! I can't say it enough, but even if you don't, look at it like this, even if you never make money while you are in school noone else does either, but you will have a huge leg up on the competition in terms of understanding of the market. Where are you going to school?
Virginia Tech. Major investment finance with possible minor or second major in management, depending on where my trading is (management is my natural skill, not sure if I want to work 50+ hour weeks in stocks for a company). I'll do a few programming classes on the sides so I might be able to do a trading system as well.
Is this a joke, tell me you don't believe you are smarter than the market, forex is easy? Read the black swan by Nassim Taleb, then interview some traders still around from 1987 and you will get a sense of how this sounds. If you are saying that markets aren't completely efficient and and that traders can outperform sp500 (beta benchmark) then I would agree, but is it luck or skill my friend?
Being smarter than the market is just barely over saying that you are smarter than the average investor. I've read investing books, and man are most of them foolish. Peter Lynch was by far the best, but there was a lot of things he shortsighted himself on toward the end of his book. What's his name book from IBD is a well-respected investor, but any idiot could tell that he manipulated his chart patterns to look more profitable than they were. Being smarter doesn't mean foreseeing the 1987 crash at all. If you were smart enough to have both long and short positions during that time (puts vs. calls even better), or more likely stops (I have seen how hard it is to always have longs and shorts, but then again I only traded the biggest caps -- so they all moved relatively together anyway) then you are head and shoulders above 95%+ in this game. Skill or luck. Is this a serious question? You could play support/resistance with a 40% chance of succeeding with a 4:1 reward/risk for the rest of your life. Is that luck? It may not be skill, but it's just being smart. Why is being smarter than the market such a revolutionary idea on a traders forum? I mean really? You people do this for a living! Let go of the cliches.